None but the hopelessly naïve or the woefully ill-informed can deny the relevance of sectarian (here meaning Sunni and Shiʿi) identities in the contemporary Middle East, particularly in the Mashriq. Equally self-evident is the centrality…

The study of what has ostensibly come to be known as “sectarianism” owes its epistemological underpinnings to power-laden discourses implicit within Orientalism. While the concept’s dubious origins come as little surprise to us as post-Saidian…